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Friday, July 01, 2011

31 Days in Seuss, Day 1: My Job

I'm beginning a new Challenge today, called 31 Days in Seuss. I'll be taking some element of my life each day and describing it in verse like the children's author Dr. Seuss. I have to admit that I'm not entirely confident I'm going to be able to do this for the whole month of July, but we'll give it a shot and see how it goes.

For the first day, I'm supposed to describe "My Job." As readers of this blog already know, I'm a professor of Philosophy at a small liberal arts college in Memphis. I always find it difficult to explain what I do to other people, so perhaps trying it in Suess will be a bit of an advantage. I mean, as far as I can tell, when I talk about Philosophy to other people it sounds a lot like Seuss-ese anyway.

So here it is, in Seuss:

MY JOBOne Who, two Who, three Who, fourA Little Who for each year, every year, sometimes moreThe Big Whos leave them here, just an unprepared corpsTo meet Great Whos of Whomanity and settle the score

I work at the Who-House. I meet Whos in great numberEager and restless, imaginations unencumberedI teach them Who thoughts and Who history and Who newsAnd how to read, write and talk like smart Little Whos

We struggle through annals of Who Life and suchAnd I hear their Who drama a little too much

In time, they are able to manage Who tusslesThey begin to develop impressive Who musclesThey stumble, they falter, they beg and they pleadBut they pick themselves up, brush off their Who kneesThey learn the Who-House is a temporary stayFor Whomanity awaits! They musn't delay!The Who-Doctors, like me, who have watered and fed themMust some day, regrettably, cut loose and shed them

Eventually, the day comes when Little Whos have grownAnd we Who-Doctors confirm what was already knownThey had untapped Whomanity in them all alongAnd they now know the difference between Who Right and Who WrongSo we send them off to the world of Whos great and smallTo find and to answer their special Who-call

We return to the Who-House, more Little Whos in waitingFor the training of Whos is a task unabatingBut each Little Who is a Future Who neededTo tend the lawn of Whomanity, which must be constantly weeded.So the Who-Skills are taught and tested and gradedQuite often with love (those Little Whos get jaded!)All the Big Whos in Who-Land depend on us dearlyTo make Little Whos who can think and speak clearlyOf philosophy and life and the goods of WhomanityTo save us all from the nonsense of Fox-Whos insanity.

As a Who-Doctor, I confess, I love what I doEven when charged with corralling bad Little WhosSo it takes no Who-effort to make this confession:Mine is the best of the best of the best Who-Professions.

1 comment:

About Doctor J

I'm a Philosophy professor in and from Memphis, Tennessee. My primary research/teaching focuses on moral and political philosophy, broadly speaking, but I also write about music, film, technology and pop culture here. The title of this blog is taken from a list of rules I pass out to my students each semester. It's Rule Number 1.